Finjan Inc. v. Juniper Networks Inc.

Northern District

U. S. District Judge William Alsup

Defense Lawyers: Jonathan S. Kagan, Rebecca L. Carson, Alan J. Heinrich, Joshua Glucoft, Casey M. Curran, Sharon Song, Kevin X. Wang, Irell & Manella LLP

Plaintiff's Lawyers: Paul J. Andre, Lisa Kobialka, James Hannah, Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP

Finjan Inc., a publicly-traded patent licensing company, claims to have obtained more than $350 million by licensing its patents. It has threatened or sued virtually every major player in the cybersecurity arena, including Symantic Corp., McAfee LLC, Cisco Systems Inc. and Palo Alto Networks Inc.

But while other companies have capitulated to Finjan's demands rather than mount a full-scale defense, Juniper Networks Inc. was an exception and fought back at a trial.

Finjan sought more than $60 million in damages.

"Juniper has a history of standing up where others have settled," said Irell & Manella LLP partner Jonathan S. Kagan, the company's lead attorney. "They stand their ground, and we have worked with Juniper on a lot of these cases."

Kagan and co-lead counsel Rebecca L. Carson persuaded U.S. District Judge William Alsup of San Francisco to grant summary judgment of no infringement on one cybersecurity patent and , in December, won a jury verdict of no infringement on another. Finjan Inc. v. Juniper Networks Inc., 17-CV5659 (N.D. Cal., filed Sept. 29, 2017).

Finjan had filed a seven-patent suit and Alsup of ordered each company to select the claim it felt was strongest. The judge called this initial phase a "patent shootout."

Rebecca l. Carson

Juniper's summary judgment on Claim 1 of its '780 patent pertaining to malware-detection technology was the first time that any defendant had obtained such a ruling on the patent which has been asserted in many Finjan lawsuits and resulted in multiple jury infringement verdicts against other defendants, including Blue Coat Systems, Sophos Group PLC and Secure Computing Corp.

"I got into this business because I like to litigate," Kagan said. "This was a great example of what can happen if you stand up and fight."

Finjan's lead counsel, Paul J. Andre, did not respond to a message seeking comment. In his February 2018 dismissal order, Alsup wrote, "Finjan essentially argues that a target refusing to play ball on Finjan's terms must be willfully infringing its patents ... this order disagrees."

Kagan said the result will be useful as the parties evaluate the rest of the case; five other patents remain at issue. "If we have to litigate every patent, it will take longer, but they may be resolved earlier. Judge Alsup ordered us to mediation before a magistrate judge."

Kagan is a veteran litigator. Carson has been at Irell for about 10 years.

"It was remarkable that Juniper gave a junior partner like me the opportunity to be co-lead on this case," she said. "This outcome so far is particularly rewarding because the opposition has had other successes. Other targets were afraid to go to trial, but we were not."

-- John Roemer